


The Story Inverted

by nimmieamee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Jughead is not remotely ace in this, do not read if you are looking for ace Jughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:24:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10849236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimmieamee/pseuds/nimmieamee
Summary: Misery loves company, and nobody's life is more more miserable than Jughead's.Unless you count Cheryl Blossom's.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt on the kinkmeme](https://riverdale-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1356.html?thread=99404#cmt99404). I never thought I would write Cheryl/Jughead, but a million dramatic slap gifsets have worked their magic on me and so here we are.

He saw his dad one more time before the sentencing, and by then they already knew that FP would probably be in jail until Jughead finished college. If Jughead went to college. He could still be the first Jones to do it, FP told him awkwardly. 

When FP spoke like that, some other dad poked through his exhausted voice. A vaguely alien, less neglectful dad. Maybe the dad FP had always wanted to be.

"I'll visit you," Jughead said. His dad looked surprised.

"Be better if you didn't," FP said, after few seconds. "If you want to wash your hands, Jug--"

"I don't," Jughead said.

People were always washing their hands of the Jones family. Even the Jones family had, if you counted his mom, not that Jughead could blame her. So for a long time he'd set up two buckets in his head: _the people that don't care_ and _the people that do_. The second bucket had been him, mostly, and for a little while he thought Fred Andrews, and usually Archie and Betty. That was it. But now his dad fit back in there. It shouldn't make him happy, but it did. It was just the kind of happiness that came tinged with pain. 

Fine. He'd take it.

"They say they're gonna help you sell the trailer," FP said. "Since I told them I won't need it now. But that money's for you, you hear? I don't want those people taking it."

Over the past week, they'd encountered a formless cloud of state agency types that neither of the Joneses was inclined to trust very much. Because he wasn't an adult yet, or because they were in the papers now and now people had to pay attention, social workers and child welfare people were materializing out of nowhere. They put him in subsidized housing for more or less emancipated minors. They were talking about weekly counseling. Jughead wasn't sure he had the option to refuse. FP was sure of even less. From what Jughead heard from the public defender, he was more concerned with making sure none of the social workers fucked over his kid than he was with how much time he'd serve.

Jughead couldn't figure out when his dad had turned back into this person. Back into a _dad_. If he were to write about it, he might dramatize it, say it was the second FP wrapped a cold, stiff young body up in plastic and became more than complicit in Jason Blossom's murder. Some combination of guilt and mortality acting on him like magic, making him want to be better for his own kids.

But who knew? Jughead didn't understand narratives anymore. He used to think he wasn't a part of Riverdale's, not really, that he was just an outside observer. That had been dead wrong. It turned out that he was at the center of the town mystery, his life almost traded away. Like Jason's had been.

"Your book," FP said. "You finish it?"

"I think it's going to stay unfinished," Jughead admitted.

Another flash of surprise, and then his father looked grimly satisfied.

"Good," he said. "Write something else. You've got a million stories in you. Always did, when you were a kid."

But he couldn't come up with anything else. Over Halloween his dad was sentenced, and the week after that he moved into a studio apartment and started the social worker's program of counseling and regular check-ins at the Children's Center in Greendale. The trailer got sold, but he kept the truck. Weatherbee started making noise about classifying him as a kid with trauma, and they made Jughead sign a paper that said he'd be evaluated in exchange for getting to go back to school.

The social worker said he didn't have to sign, that technically they couldn't kick him out. This was CYA stuff for them. Jughead could make it hard by refusing. But he was tired. He'd been living out of Archie's garage, awkwardly, because Fred didn't want to kick him out, but now he knew Fred didn't want him there either. And his mom didn't want him in Toledo, so if they weren't going to keep him out of school, he didn't see the problem. Not being barred was way, way better than not being wanted.

"You should fight it," Betty insisted. " _They_ should be the ones to change . They should be training on how to deal with students who have family trauma. They shouldn't be pushing all the work onto you."

"Is it so bad if they evaluate him? They'll just give him extra tutoring to catch up for the time he was suspended or something," Veronica said disinterestedly. 

Her own father was being released in a month, and this consumed most of her thoughts. Jughead had tried to write a few lines one night about how the thing he wanted more than anything -- his dad home -- was apparently catastrophic for Riverdale's resident ice princess. But the sarcasm dried up, and when he looked at his prose he thought it was trying too hard. He deleted the whole thing.

"They can give you tutoring?" Archie said, after a few seconds. "Can I get tutoring?"

Betty stared at him, exasperated. 

"It's an honest question," Veronica pointed out.

"I'll give you my tutoring," Jughead said. "You wear the hat. They don't know the difference."

But that wasn't true anymore, because people did know who he was now. Son of the infamous FP Jones. His dad not being guilty of murder didn't make his dad any less a gang leader, and since Clifford Blossom was dead it was his dad's trial the papers followed. Including the _Register_. That made Betty furious. She somehow contrived to get her mother off the _Blue and Gold_ in retaliation.

In Jughead's novel, Betty was:

\- perfect,  
\- the girl next door,  
\- the friendly neighborhood Hitchcock Blonde.

It still fit, that balance of sunny exterior with something intense, focused, and vaguely subversive underneath. But he could no longer pretend that she represented some kind of ideal Riverdale, some sunlight-soaked childhood they'd never had. She was tougher than that. She was a reaction to the new Riverdale, a truth-seeking teen sleuth who wanted to hold the town accountable for its sins.

They fought the second week in November, because he couldn't shake how exhausted he was, and she couldn't shake how badly she wanted him to be by her side, to be better. To not be so gloomy and resigned. 

And then after that they couldn't make up the fight. Or he couldn't. 

After Jason Blossom had been murdered, he'd spent nearly four months trying to get his friends back, or trying to get the old Riverdale back, or just trying to make sense of it all. And he didn't have anything back, not even his dad. And nothing made sense, least of all the idea that this could be a universe where Betty Cooper would ever really settle for him. 

So by December they were officially not together, or as official as it got when two people just didn't address a breakup and made a unified show of changing the subject whenever anyone else brought it up. Archie fought with Veronica around the same time. By Christmas break he was trying to awkwardly cover up the way he looked at Betty, and Betty was frosty with Archie and also with Veronica, and Jughead watched the narrative settle into something nearly normal.

The story the way it was supposed to happen. Betty Cooper, perfect and perfectly untouchable. Archie Andrews, good and decent, if not decent enough for her. Veronica Lodge, the beautiful interloper who somehow belonged with both of them. 

And Jughead, the oddball they occasionally consulted with, always available at Pop's between spates of avoiding the counselor and the tutor and the makeup homework and -- really, a lot of things.

There wasn't any happiness in that, but there also wasn't any pain. His dad had said Jughead had something good with his friends, and he'd been right. Jughead had a consistent routine, an ease, a world that didn't have to be especially dark even if it didn't feel especially light either. 

He spent the day before Christmas with them, dodging Archie's clumsy attempts to invite him over for Christmas itself and Betty's attempts to ascertain whether he was going to have a good Christmas even if he wouldn't be spending it with the Andrews family. 

He saw his dad on Christmas. It was probably the best Christmas he'd ever spent with FP. No alcohol allowed, and FP looked healthier than he had in years. He was getting regular meals, the kind that even came with salads. 

Then, after the prison visit, Jughead got a call from his mom. She sounded tired and said that if he waited until she got that promotion, maybe then she could send him something. He told her she wouldn't have to (which they both knew he would say), and that he was sending Jellybean a vintage Doors T-Shirt he'd found in a thrift shop by Centreville, which was the kind of thing Jellybean liked. 

Pop's was open for Christmas dinner. There Jughead picked up a cheeseburger and sat with his laptop, trying to celebrate by writing something.

He hadn't written anything since early October. He didn't have anything to write. His dad still told him to make things up, make up some stories that were bigger and better than Riverdale. But Jason Blossom had been the story he knew best, because it was just the story of Jughead Jones, but inverted. Instead of the outsider who had lived, the insider who had died. But still the same creeping darkness around the edges, still the questions and mysteries. Until the mystery had dried up, the murder more or less solved. 

Snow coated the outside of the windows and the jukebox blared _Little Jack Frost, Get Lost_. It almost drowned out the tinkle of the door. Almost. 

Jughead looked up. 

Cheryl Blossom, who had transferred to a fancy boarding school more than two months ago, slid into place at the counter. 

And just like that, Jughead was thinking in phrases again. He tapped out a sentence about red neon gloom. About gothic heroines. About what happened when you tried to bury a secret beneath holiday cheer, but then it adjusted its furs and walked back into town anyway.

"So what's up with you, teen vagabond?" Cheryl said, sliding into the booth across him without preamble. She'd acquired a strawberry milkshake. 

It had two cherries. On a whim, Jughead took one.


	2. Chapter 2

Cheryl's mother still didn't like her.

It stood to reason. One unloved daughter _plus_ one murderous papa _plus_ one golden, beloved son. But subtract the son. Then subtract the devastatingly evil father. You were still left with the unloved daughter. You wouldn't be able to just get rid of that one, even if that was the one you wanted gone most of all.

"It's simple arithmetic," Cheryl recited to her roommate. Then she calmly picked up the gold-backed hairbrush that had come with the toilette set Jason had given her (which of course she had packed for St. Trinian's, because she wasn't about to leave that behind where her mother could take it) and, while their prefect watched, smacked the roommate across the face with it.

Cheryl wasn't very good at reining in her anger. Or, for that matter, at listening to girls who wanted her booted off of a social ladder she had very nimbly climbed in two months. And who thought mocking her family would do the trick. 

But after the anger came the calls home, and after the calls home came Penelope. Something bubbled up when Cheryl caught a look at her face. It felt a lot like humiliation, like futility. Cheryl wasn't good at reining that in, either. So she was sobbing with shame even before the Headmistress announced that she would have to leave.

"A nice Christmas present from you, Cheryl!" her mother snapped, as she dragged her out to the car. Cheryl's things came after them, borne by Cheryl's harassed housemistress. 

"Be careful with the steamer trunk!" Cheryl said. 

It was eighty years old and, like all of Cheryl's things, it had pedigree. It had belonged to Clara Bow. The monogramming fit Cheryl perfectly. It had been a gift from Jason. All of Cheryl's nicest things were. 

Dr. Hazelwood tossed it in the back of Penelope's Aston Martin, then turned on her heel and marched back to the dormitory without a second look. Cheryl was enraged. The rage made her cry harder.

"Do you _want_ to go back to Riverdale High?" Penelope said, manhandling Cheryl into the car. She slammed the door after Cheryl and there was a second's reprieve as she walked around to the other side. Then she was climbing in and taking the wheel and Cheryl's shame intensified, because every time she remembered they didn't have a driver anymore, she began to feel wretched. 

"It would serve you right to have to listen to those people's whispers," Penelope said as she started the car. "To feel what I've felt, Cheryl. The whole town hungry to see your downfall. I sent you away to protect you from that, and look how you repay me."

"No you didn't," Cheryl blurted out, through her tears. "You just didn't want to look at me, after daddy and Jason."

Her mother's delicate white hand crossed the space between them and smacked Cheryl so hard her ears rang. Cheryl saw it coming, but somehow she couldn't move away. Her mother was the last Blossom left who had any faculties, and even before, when her father and Jason had been around, her mother's will had been absolute. Penelope created reality for the Blossoms. When she said, _you're being ridiculous, asking after the maple business like you have any interest in it_ , she created a universe where it was ludicrous to think Cheryl would know the first thing about the company. When she said, _your brother will come around and learn his place_ , she created a universe where Polly Cooper didn't matter and never would, where all the Blossoms had to do was slander her and she'd go away. 

When she said, _I sent you away to protect you_ , Cheryl could see that it really did look like that. No one would believe Cheryl if Cheryl disputed it.

Even though, really, reality hadn't conformed to Penelope's will. Not in the end. Jason was dead, Clifford was dead, and Cheryl was hardly protected. She'd only been transplanted. Still surrounded by people who didn't care, girls who didn't ask after her. How was that different from Riverdale High?

No one in her class had written to her. No one had told her they were sorry -- everyone already had, back when Jason's body had been found, and when they'd learned about Clifford all the sympathy turned to disgust. Maybe even glee. 

So in the past few months Cheryl had only had two letters, both from Polly Cooper. Polly avoided mentioning anything Blossom or Cooper related, asked what Cheryl thought of several hideous baby names (Alison, June, Tommy, Paul), and doodled things that looked like blobs but were actually attempts to replicate her ultrasounds. She was due in January. Cheryl hated the thought of not being there, and also hated the thought of having to pack into a fluorescent-lit neonatal ward with the Coopers and her mother and sweet sweet Polly and Betty, the girl who had cracked the case.

"Are you sending me back to Riverdale High?" Cheryl asked.

"It would be no more than you deserve," said Penelope, which was a no. Penelope didn't care very much about what Cheryl deserved, unless what Cheryl deserved coincided with what Penelope wanted. 

She clearly wanted Cheryl to stop crying, because she didn't speak to Cheryl after that and didn't smack her again, which was Penelope's way of not winding her up. Cheryl was pathetically grateful, because it meant she did calm down, more or less. Her mother turned on the radio for the drive back to Thornhill and they listened to Rachmaninoff the whole way. Cheryl wondered if anyone had looked after her piano. If her mother hadn't sold it.

There was no money in the maple business. At all. There _was_ money in the drug business, which was what Clifford had tried to supplant it with, but that had backfired very spectacularly. And so in a matter of minutes Cheryl had become no better than Veronica Lodge. The daughter of a criminal, a princess fallen on hard times. 

Only Veronica hadn't watched passively as her mother told her father in so many words to kill himself. Cheryl supposed that doing it in the barn, where he'd known the drugs were -- that that had been Clifford's revenge. But they had no way of knowing for sure. When Cheryl had tried to ask her mother _why_ , why the murder and why this deathbed vindictiveness, Penelope had slapped her across the face.

"I need you to be strong," Penelope had said. "Not to cry and waffle and question us, Cheryl!"

That had been Penelope's reaction to Cheryl even before Jason and Clifford had died. Cheryl felt colossally stupid for thinking that the deaths would change it. Questions had never been welcome at Thornhill. 

And yet Cheryl loved it there. She loved the massive fireplaces, big enough for her and Jason to step into without crouching. She loved the wood-paneled walls and the way they looked in holiday firelight. She loved the rose gardens and the topiaries, how they took on eerie shapes when covered in snow; and the gloomy comfort of the conservatory; and Nana buried under the pile of woolen sweaters that Jason gave her every Christmas. 

Cheryl made an absymal Sarah Crewe. She didn't want to molder away in a boarding school. She wanted to be a Blossom. She wanted to wake up on Christmas morning and drag Jason outside to go wreath the cemetery, and hunt among the couches in the library and music room for the one that would be full of Jason's presents just for her.

She got none of that. 

"It's to be expected," she whispered to her reflection on Christmas morning. "He's dead. He's dead." 

But she didn't _want_ him to be, so she lit the fires in the library and music room herself, and garlanded the tombstones, and dragged the steamer trunk to Nana's room to unpack a mountain of woolen sweaters.

"Where is Jason?" Nana demanded. "He should be here when I open my presents."

"He's on his honeymoon," Cheryl told her blithely.

"He and Polly went to that farm," Nana said, disapproving.

"They went to Monaco," Cheryl told her. "Polly was dying to see the French Riviera ever since you told her about it."

Nana Rose nodded and draped herself in another sweater, seemingly fascinated by its oversized buttons.

"Is Jason here yet?" she said, after a few minutes.

"He's on safari with Polly," Cheryl said. 

"Oh, the honeymoon," said Nana. "I love a good safari."

Penelope said she was going downhill fast, but Cheryl didn't know if she was. Nana was so scrupulously honest now. Before, between the two of them, she'd always tried to inquire after everyone, not just Jason. Now she made it clear that she didn't care. It was Jason she wanted to talk about, only Jason, and while it hurt to talk about him, it was a _right_ hurt. Between Cheryl and Nana Rose, Jason wouldn't be forgotten. Not even if Nana forgot everyone else. 

Cheryl didn't see Penelope that day, because Thornhill was large enough for them to avoid each other. As the day wound down, she got a text message from Polly.

_Merry Christmas! I'd love to see you if you're in town. I'm on bedrest, though, so you'll have to come to me._

She was due in January. Jason's children were coming in January. And the fires at Thornhill were dark, and there were no wreaths or garlands except the ones Cheryl made herself, and Cheryl would be gone by then, at St. Wimple's or St. Agatha's or St. Crumbleton or something.

Suddenly, Thornhill felt unbearable. Cheryl tore out of there, desperate to be anywhere else, only in Riverdale there was nowhere else to be. Everything was closed on Christmas. Or nearly everything.

Pop's still flickered neon through the winter storm, its steadfast glow washing all that white a hazy pink-purple. Cheryl pulled up in front. No one should have been there, but through foggy windows she could just barely make someone out.

Of course it was Jughead Jones. It would be him. The nobody from the back of the class. The son of a criminal.

The last time she'd seen him, he'd been hunched and miserable, with purple bags under his eyes. Dressed like a beggar and asking her forgiveness. 

Cheryl inhaled sharply.

She wasn't good at reining in anger and sadness and humiliation, so it filled her up now. She hadn't even meant to hurt him. It was just that he'd been stupid enough to show up, to be right there in front of her. 

Some people had no sense of self-preservation.

That was a Blossom thought. Heady. Entitled. Cheryl adored it and for a second she cradled it close. It wasn't her fault. It was Jughead Jones trying to apologize that had done it, that had guided her hand. She wasn't sorry.

Except that she was, a little. Sorry like how she'd been sorry over the playbook, and over Polly discovering the ring. The kind of pathetic, whimpering sorry that crept in around the edges. The kind of sorry that made Jughead Jones' very public sorry look downright heroic.

It was stupid. He was nobody. His name was _Jughead_.

Cheryl ordered a milkshake to fortify herself. Then she went to go talk to him.


	3. Chapter 3

Cheryl decided to make it up to him with seduction. She decided this two seconds after she learned Betty Cooper had dumped him.

"She didn't dump me, Cruella," Jughead said, making a decisive hand gesture that was somehow both agitated and rude. "We just drifted apart."

Cheryl waved his words away. Betty Cooper didn't drift. Wouldn't drift. Would have had feelings until the end, sweetly passionate feelings that involved justice for her sad hoodlum boyfriend. Until she had foolishly let those feelings boil over into a fight that she couldn't resolve.

Cheryl had a knot in her chest when she thought of Betty. The girl who got her sibling back, who'd saved Cheryl's life. It wasn't that Cheryl wanted to punish her, exactly, or even that Cheryl hated her. It was that, in the aftermath of Cheryl's brother's death, Betty Cooper had emerged the heroine. 

So taking something of Betty's only seemed like the right strategic move, the next step in shifting the story back her way. This was the kind of circuitous reasoning that had once led Dilton Doiley to tell her, half-admiringly, "You don't think like normal people do."

And Cheryl had said, "That's why I have the class 4.0. Anyway, I'm not normal."

She was a Blossom. Better than normal. To be seduced by her was a privilege, the kind Jughead Jones would probably never again experience in all his miserable life. 

Cheryl drummed her fingers on the table and regarded him. 

Boys, for most of her life, had been divided into three categories. 1. Jason, 2. a little bit like Jason, and 3. nothing like Jason at all. Jughead fell into the third tier, as did most boys. Archie Andrews had something of Jason, something of his casual generosity and his open heart. But Jughead was closed completely. Too nervy. Too sarcastic.

Aesthetically, though, she was surprised to discover that he would do. 

When boys' personalities all led back to Jason and to the stark reality that Jason would always be the only one to treat her best, she didn't have to worry about their looks. If she let herself really look at them, though, their looks could be just as distracting as the girls'. It was just that, when it came to girls, Cheryl understood their convictions, their rage buttons, their values. Girls were worth spending time on, because they interesting as well as good looking.

Boys were just sometimes good looking. This one was thin and dark-haired and spotted all over with beauty marks, the exact opposite of what Blossoms liked, and yet Cheryl didn't hate looking at him. Though she did hate his clothes. They looked like they'd been dug out of a garbage can.

"If you're on welfare now, you could use it to clean up a little," she commented. Since she'd finished her milkshake, she fished her compact and lipstick out of the pocket of her furs and touched up her mouth while he sputtered at her.

"I'm in a youth housing program for emancipated--"

"Welfare," Cheryl supplied.

"If you're here to insult me," Jughead said, making every word deliberate. "You can find a new booth."

"Oh, please, like you haven't flung your share of insults my way," Cheryl said, rolling her eyes. She snapped the mirror closed and tucked her makeup away. 

"I don't insult people," Jughead said. "I describe them. Negatively."

"So do I, but at least I don't pretend that's not insulting them," Cheryl said.

His lashes (absurdly long, as long as hers) flickered in annoyance.

"Do I get to see your state-supplied welfare palace?" Cheryl asked.

He made a baffled face. It was somehow inherently goofy, and Cheryl told him so.

"Yeah, this is the face you get," he said, passing a hand over it.

"Pity," Cheryl said, just to watch him scowl and look away. 

"So," she continued blithely, as the silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the occasional tap on his keyboard. "Can I see the welfare palace? You've been to Thornhill, so it's only fair."

"Why would I take you to my apartment, Cheryl?" 

"Because you haven't stopped writing about me since the second I walked in, of course." 

His fingers stilled. So that guess was right. 

"A palpable hit," Cheryl said. "I'll be every bit the muse you need, don't worry, if you just take me home."

"No," Jughead said flatly. 

"Then come to Thornhill," Cheryl offered. "It's not like any of you townie types get to see it these days. I'm sure my mother isn't big on company, and you'd like the chance to poke around."

Again he stopped typing, like she was right about that too. He was an amateur sleuth, like his ex-girlfriend. He liked to chase down secrets, and Thornhill was full of those. 

And they both knew it was somehow the most forbidden thing they could do. His father hadn't killed Jason, but he had been involved. Her father had killed Jason, and had landed his father in prison in connection with the murder. 

"Sordid," Cheryl murmured.

"What is?" he asked quietly.

"Come to Thornhill and see," she said. 

He came. He had a very working class green pickup, and it trailed her cherry red coupe all the way. There was something illicit about catching his headlights in her rearview mirror. Cheryl found herself glancing at them the whole way there, as if to make sure he was still coming.

It had been two months since anyone had followed after her, gone anywhere just because she told them to. And it had been almost a lifetime of no one showing up when she wanted, no one at her birthday parties, no one on time to Vixens practice unless she screamed and tantrumed. No one but Jason, really, who cared enough to ever do the things she needed them to. 

No one but Jughead Jones to show up and apologize and share her misery, when she'd needed people to be miserable. To stop acting like things would be _fine_.

She let him in through the kitchen door, across the huge room with its four ovens and the rack of pots and pans that cast peculiar shadows. He hunched into his flannel jacket like he thought something was going to attack him.

"Stop that," she said, annoyed. "Our security system is state of the art, you know. There's no safer house than Thornhill."

"Excuse me if I don't believe that," he muttered.

Cheryl had the urge to hit him, but refrained. Seduction didn't normally involve violence. It did involve the right setting, though, one far from Penelope's wing. So she decided on the music room. Her piano was still there, among the couches and Penelope's harps in their mirrored corner. Among Jason's expensive guitars and her fathers highly collectible violins, the ones that had been rescued from the sinking of the Titanic.

Jughead looked appropriately interested when she pointed them out. 

"Great-grandfather Blossom made it out alive, of course," she added.

"Yeah, I don't think a Blossom would have been left to die in steerage," Jughead said.

Again Cheryl wanted to hit him. It was incredible how much irritation he could provoke with only a few words. 

"If you were going to be sarcastic, why did you even come?" she snapped.

"The sarcasm sort of follows wherever I go," he explained. "It's my special way. Plus, I figure you no longer have enough money to hire people to murder me."

Then he glanced sidelong at the violins and admitted, "Even though you would if you sold some of this stuff."

"It _won't_ be sold," Cheryl said frostily, though it wasn't up to her. "This is Blossom family history. It belongs at Thornhill or, if we're feeling charitable, in a major museum. It belongs to Jason's babies. The thing with history, when you have it, is that it's too precious to be tossed in the trash."

"When you have it?" Jughead said shortly. "Nice dig. Everyone has it, Cheryl. Even me."

Cheryl was aware of that, though. All too aware. In the flickering light cast by the fireplace, he was a thin pale shadow, as fine-boned as any Blossom, and if he hadn't been dressed like a South Sider he would have almost fit in. 

But she didn't want or need him to. This mattered to her because this was weirdo Jughead Jones, the one boy who had treated her rage with significance. The one boy who maybe even shared it. His bitter history was hers now. 

"I'm going to change," she told him. "Stay here."

He caught her sleeve before she could walk out.

"Yeah, if you're going to go get somebody to bash my head in, I'm leaving," he said.

"I'm going to go change into a dressing gown," Cheryl snapped, exasperated. "I invited you here to get comfortable."

"Comfortable," he repeated. He looked up at a high wall littered with violins and moose heads and pockets of expensive stained glass. "In Hill House? Comfortable. Before or after one of us suffers a spell of demonic possession?"

Cheryl lost her patience.

"Comfortable, you ghoulish loon, as in _sex_."

His eyes, paler than even Jason's had been, widened. He looked like he would have found demonic possession less surprising.


	4. Chapter 4

Things like this didn't happen to Jughead Jones. At all.

But Cheryl was famous for not playing by the rules, known for twisting situations to suit her. Opening the door to chaos wherever she went. 

Right now, she didn't even need the door. Chaos flew in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and engulfed Jughead. On the one hand, possibly he would die here tonight, in Thornhill, just as Jason had died on his father's territory. It would all come narratively full circle. He'd be murdered because of the twisted darkness that Clifford Blossom and FP Jones had unleashed on the town together, when one had killed Jason and the other had helped conceal the crime.

On the other hand, Cheryl Blossom was tossing aside her furs and unbuttoning her lacy blouse. Part of Jughead thought, _this can't be real. Has to be a ruse_ , and another part, lower down, reacted exactly the way --

Well. Exactly the way Archie would.

Cheryl was beautiful. He'd always known it, but it had been irrelevant to his daily life. Like knowing Iceland was beautiful. Cheryl was a physically lovely place he would definitely never visit, because it was too far away. And also he could never see himself choosing to visit, because the climate -- as in her temperament -- didn't seem like his kind of thing.

"Why?" he stammered out. "Are you going to--"

 _Strip me naked and murder me_ had been what he was going to say. But Cheryl cut him off.

"If you say 'murder' one more time I'm going to brain you with a Stradivarius, you gangbanger lunatic."

So that proved this really was Cheryl Blossom, not some kind of sex-crazed evil (good?) doppleganger. A possibility Jughead had been well and truly considering.

"This isn't how this goes," he pointed out to her, holding his hands out to show the insanity of it. "We're barely the same species, Cheryl."

"I'm something much more fine," she agreed, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder. Since she'd just unbuttoned her bra, this gave him full view of her breasts. 

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he thought, _So maybe Iceland's fjords are, in fact, among the most incredible sights the world has to offer._ While the entire front of his mind decided it wouldn't care if he got murdered, because right now, in this moment, he was looking at Cheryl's breasts.

"Why?" he managed again.

"You said you were sorry," Cheryl said, very quickly. "Months ago. In -- in the cafeteria. You have a condom, right?"

"Why would I have a condom?" Jughead asked. 

"Because we're going to have sex," Cheryl said, like he was stupid.

"Can't you get one from Jason's room?"

"If Jason had had condoms, I wouldn't be an aunt next month."

There she had a point. Then his words caught up to him. For a second there, he'd actually been considering sex with Cheryl, even though he had never even had full-on sex with Betty. 

"So we can't," he said. "No condom. So."

Cheryl bounced onto a chaise lounge and kicked off her thigh-high boots, then peeled off her tight leather pants. This left her naked. Except for her lipstick, which did somehow make him feel like he wasn't looking at her _naked_. No nakedness of the soul. Just nakedness of the body. Which was good, because while Jughead's body was definitely reacting, he wanted to withdraw his soul completely from this equation. 

What would Betty think? What would Archie? This kind of thing didn't happen to Jughead Jones. Jughead had exactly two friends. He wasn't really the kind of person who got treated to Cheryl Blossom booty calls.

Cheryl leaned back on the chaise lounge and shook her hair out again, letting it fall away from her completely. It was an invitation for bad prose. Edenic stuff, about Eve tempting Adam in the garden. 

Cheryl crooked a finger and said, "I know I'm beautiful. And you're not exactly terrible."

"Thanks. That's just what a guy wants to hear," Jughead managed.

Cheryl just waved a hand up and down, along the length of his body.

"Let's see you, then," she said. "Maybe I'll change my mind." 

And the thing was, he wanted her to. No one looked at him like he was handsome. Betty had, once or twice, when he'd pulled on a suit. It had been dizzying. Like Jughead wasn't really some invisible South Sider with a juvenile record and a family that had fallen apart. And this felt like a chance to -- to be more than that again. If only for tonight. 

And if he wasn't up to snuff, and she laughed or something, well. Who cared? She was Cheryl. She'd laughed at him, humiliated him a million times. Jughead actually expected her to laugh.

He stripped down his boxers anyway. When he was done, she didn't laugh. She crooked her finger again.

He said, "I never--"

"With good girl Betty?" Cheryl said. "I should think not. Don't worry, though. I'll be gentle."

He almost went to her, and then he thought about what she was saying.

"If this is to get back at her for something, or to hurt her--" he began warningly. 

"God, you're like the Olympic champion of paranoia," Cheryl said, rolling her eyes again. "I very solemnly swear not to tell Betty a thing, or anyone else a thing. As if I would, when I'd just be telling the world that I was sleeping with Riverdale High's resident grunge goblin."

There it was. The expected humiliation. He wasn't upset, just resigned, but his shoulders must have tensed up anyway. Because then Cheryl was standing up and running her manicured hands over them.

The touch made him shiver. Cheryl's red lips quirked up.

"Relax," she instructed. "They can't see what I see, and what I see is very nice."

One hand danced down his chest. The other encircled his neck, then crept up to his hair.

"Let's take this off, though, shall we?" she said. 

His hat. He only took it off around Betty. Archie. Once, his dad. Always for Jellybean, if she asked. But nobody else. He jerked his head away. 

"Not that," he said. "That stays on." 

"That's bizarre," Cheryl said flatly. "But fine. I can work with bizarre if you can. And I can't say I expected more from you." 

The hand dancing down his chest found his boxers and slipped inside the band. Jughead felt her fingers close around his length. Slight, sudden touches. Jughead bit back a groan.

"And in some areas I'll admit I expected less," Cheryl said, tone bright now. "So that's a pleasant surprise. Come on. Let's lie down." 

She pulled her hand out, leaving him completely hard now. She tugged him towards the biggest couch in the room. It was a huge velvety thing. He was very sure that no one below a certain income bracket should be touching that couch, because a stain on that would be more than he could afford. 

But Cheryl Blossom probably knew what she looked like laid out on blue velvet, with her bright hair streaming all around her. She probably even knew that Jughead had a thing for bright hair. She'd seen him chase after Betty and Archie for years, and she wasn't dumb.

"How do I look?" she demanded.

"Great," Jughead said, and meant it. "Like they say in books. Pink and white, like a dresden shepherdess."

" _Like they say in books_ ," she echoed, and her voice was a peculiar mix of sarcastic and delighted. She pulled him in and then they were kissing. It didn't have the happy, devastating need of kissing Betty, but it didn't have to. Stretched out over her on the sofa, he could feel every part of her. Softer and warmer than Cheryl Blossom should be. The heavy curves of her breasts in his hands, the smooth feel of her legs opening around him.

And there was one good thing about being the son of a man who liked both liquor and women a little too much. Jughead knew, more or less, what you had to do at this point. He'd heard FP and his buddies talk about it enough times when they were in their cups. You had to get her good and wet. Maybe get her off once at least, before you started in on your own pleasure. It was only gentlemanly.

His fingers found her sex. He rubbed it gently, first the outer lips, then a slightly harder press as he found her clit. She gasped into his mouth. He broke off from the kiss to move further down and get a good look at her there. 

Her vagina was flushed pink, dusted with red hair. He put his mouth to it experimentally. 

It was very soft and hot. The intimacy of licking her there left him reeling. Left her reeling, too, he thought. Her hands scrabbled at his head. He gently pushed them away. Then he applied himself to lapping along her inner lips, licking a stripe up to her clit. It stood at attention. He sucked at it lightly and brought his fingers back to rub at her folds. 

She bucked against him. She really was getting wet, slick and hot. He found her opening and rubbed along it as he tongued her clit gently. He wanted to make sure she got wet enough before he slipped a finger in. It would stretch, he knew. But it would be easier on her if she was wetter first. Drenched. You wanted her drenched.

So he rubbed and dipped between her lips. Curled his tongue around her clit and heard her breath hitch. Soon she was dripping on his fingers, and when he slid one in he felt almost no resistance. It just gave, completely willing, and in response she keened.

"Alright?" he told her, pulling his mouth off. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. Her chest heaving. She reached down a hand like she wanted to shove his head back down, but caught herself.

"Don't stop," she said instead, between hard breaths.

He descended again. He worked her with his tongue and fingers until he could slip two into her channel. It pulsed hot around him. He fucked those two fingers in, stretching her gently, enjoying the way her hips fucked back. She was so slick now that he thought she must be close. Even though he was straining against his boxers, painfully hard, he didn't want to break the rhythm they had. He licked and finger-fucked her until she came with a cry, her sex now flushed completely red, wanton and satisfied.

When she was coming down from her orgasm, still breathing hard, he told her, "We can stop."

He was very hard. But it still felt like some kind of dream, the kind that would swiftly descend into a nightmare. Jughead had had plenty of those before. He knew what they felt like.

Cheryl pulled him up to face her and reached again for the band of his boxers.

"Don't be stupid, you cheerless killjoy," she said. "Of course we're not going to stop."


	5. Chapter 5

Cheryl had intended to be the one to make this good. Because she liked control. And because she'd expected him to be only about as good in bed as the average boy. So, bad. Unless you coached him. 

He wasn't bad at all. He was a little shy. His glance slid away every time she tried to look at him. She only forgave him because he was so obviously impressed by her. He was breathing hard, long lashes fluttering in surprise as he cupped her breasts. 

Cheryl let him explore for a few minutes, until he started pressing his talented pink mouth to her nipples and sucking softly. Everywhere he touched her with that mouth, he left spots of heat and tenderness. It was stupefying. Weirdly wonderful. Cheryl tried to grab his hair again and had to settle for clutching his shoulders to steady herself.

She was annoyed about the hat. Without it, he would be perfect. Curled into her, his hair wild and dark. _Pretty_. Because while he was undeniably a boy, with firm arms and a hard dick, there was something delicate to him too. If Cheryl didn't know him to be nervy and resistant to fun, she would have asked for the chance to dress him up. Like a doll. A hint of color on his eyelids, on his cheekbones. That surprisingly thick cock straining behind red silk instead of dingy gray cotton. 

She pulled him up and brushed her hands over his length. She heard his breath hitch. 

"I want you inside me," she said, making every word clear. 

His gaze skidded away again, surprised. Cheryl carefully traced a finger over his cheekbone. He inhaled sharply.

She was as good as inviting him to line his dick up and plunge right in. But he didn't do that. He started rubbing her again, knowing by now the rhythm she liked. She arched into his fingers. Sure, tender touches, slipping into her with little resistance. Stretching her. She moaned when he slid a third finger in, offering her some friction. She could get off like this again. Would. She was close. But she wanted to come against his dick, not his fingers.

"Fuck me," she whispered into his ear. "I'll be so good. So nice. I promise."

For a second his eyes met hers, disbelieving. Cheryl used that second to get the band of his boxers down. His cock came free, hard and hot against her hands. She curled her fingers around it, cooing.

"Want me to suck you?" she asked. After that performance with his hands and mouth, she wondered what he tasted like. Salty and hot? More satisfying than he had any right to be?

But she wouldn't find out. He shook his head, like he mistrusted too much of a good thing.

"Sex is enough," he managed. He lifted himself off her long enough to get his boxers off completely and take his own dick in hand. Then he lined up between her legs and slid inside her.

She was so wet that there was hardly any pain. Just fullness as he pressed in the first two or three inches. It was thicker than his fingers, and much much hotter. She gasped without meaning to. She had the urge to grab him now and bring him close, almost to reward him. Her whole world was narrowing to the delicious rub of him inside her. 

She tightened her muscles around him and he cried out. Cheryl curved her fingers around his shoulders and drew him in.

"That's good," she said, stroking the nape of his neck. "More."

He obliged. Slowly, torturously, he slid in deeper. Or at least it felt slow -- Cheryl couldn't tell. Her mind stopped measuring the time. There was only the sensation of being penetrated. His dick was hot and hard, dragging moans out of her that she never expected to give. 

This was bad, she knew. Maybe it was the care he'd put into prepping her, but this felt _slutty_ , the way just being fucked into was enough. He rocked in and out a few times, feeding her the tip. She cried every time it retreated. It felt like a denial, losing even a few inches of that hard cock. When he rocked it back in, the fullness felt incredible. His cock scraped along her walls, teasing her. The more she tried to fuck back against him, the more it teased, pulling out just when she wanted him in her completely.

When he got it in to the hilt, there shouldn't have been anything erotic about it. His pubic hair scraped her sensitive lips. But she clenched around him and came for the second time, wrapping her legs around him. Not wanting him to stop. He'd fucked her to completion and she wanted him to keep going, keep opening her up with his cock.

He did. He fucked her through her orgasm, face tucked into her shoulder. Panting hard against her neck. Cheryl was a dripping mess around his cock and she didn't care. She felt filthy and wanton, sated by the town delinquent. And she wanted to come again on his dick, and she wanted him to come too. He felt wound so tight in her arms that she knew it wouldn't take much more.

"I have an idea," she whispered, and felt him shudder against her with anticipation. She ran her fingers once down his tense back to soothe him. Then she gently directed him off of her. When his dick slipped out, she had to bite back a hiss at how empty she felt. But it would be worth it to get him across the room. To Penelope's corner.

High mirrors, so that her mother could admire herself as she played the harp. And so that she could criticize Cheryl from every angle when Cheryl had been learning. Cheryl had brief childish urge to knock over the concert grand, but didn't. It was too heavy anyway.

Instead she pressed her hands against a mirrored wall and spread her legs. For a second, she admired herself. She could see Jughead admiring her too, his tired blue-green eyes raking over her. She reached out a hand behind her and directed his hand to her hip.

"You're good," she allowed, because she was in a complimentary mood and she wanted to be kind. "But I want to see you in me."

And she wanted to see the way he pinked, a flush settling on his face and all along his chest, when he was complimented. She wanted to see him settle behind her as she felt the heat of his body along her back and ass. It was colder here away from the fire. That only meant that he was hotter as he fit in around her. His dick bobbed up between her legs. She felt her mouth water as she looked at it, at that insistent uncut head poking at her flushed lips. 

He tucked his face into her shoulder again. 

"How do I look?" he quipped, obviously not expecting a serious answer.

"Great," Cheryl said, with an assessing raised eyebrow. "Like something in books."

Like a stable boy, debauched. She felt delicate and precious, pink and white all over. And in contrast he was filthy and common and apologetic and good at this. Very good. 

His hands closed hard around her hips and he pressed into her. She watched her pussy open around him, swallowing him. He looked too large against her, and her breath hitched. Watching intensified every feeling. Made being filled up hotter, realer. She had to steady herself on the mirror to keep from falling over. From this angle she could feel him better, feel the way his dick rubbed every sensitive spot inside her. He held onto her hips and fucked her in earnest now, driving in deep. She knew she was crying out and was glad, for once, that Thornhill was so vast and cavernous than no one could hear you cry here. No one but her could hear how hard he breathed against her. No one but her could see how he shuddered every time he fucked into her, how he held her like just touching someone was a privilege for him.

Maybe it was. He was nobody. He was the boy who had once had nothing but an apology. He was the one person who maybe understood what that was: having only your misery to offer.

Then again, maybe he had more to offer than that. With every thrust, he hit the perfect spot inside her. It made her clench tight and shake on his dick, crying for more. She'd started this thinking she would seduce him, but the seduction was going the other way. He felt hot and firm inside her, fucking her raw. Fucking her until she came a third time, until she fell sobbing into her release. 

He pumped into her and in seconds he was coming with her. She tightened around him, wanting to milk him dry. He was gushing inside her, filling her up. When he pulled out, he left her staring down at the well fucked mess that was her sex.

He stepped back, still breathing hard. She caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked unsure. She took a second to collect herself and then tossed her hair over her shoulder, looking back at him.

"You can sleep here if you want," she offered coolly. "It's late."

He gave a startled nod. Something about it was off. It took Cheryl a few seconds to figure out what.

His hat had slipped off. She hadn't even noticed. He scrabbled for it, rescuing it from the floor and jamming it on his head again. Cheryl felt briefly victorious, but only briefly. He turned and started poking at her furs, and when he came back he was holding out a tube of lipstick.

"Your mouth," he muttered. 

She looked back at mirror and realized that she'd smeared her lipstick somehow. All that panting and nuzzling and kissing. She instinctively covered up her mouth with her hands, feeling naked.

"I'm going to bed," she said abruptly. "There's a guest room down the hall." 

Then she picked up her clothes and boots and escaped back to her wing, heart racing. She had no idea how she would sleep, because she felt frantic, but somehow she did sleep the second her head touched the pillow. Dreamless sleep, the kind she hadn't experienced since Jason had died.

She didn't bother checking on Jughead in the morning, because she didn't expect him to be there. She went down to breakfast, and as Nana Rose had no concept of day or night anymore, it was just her and Penelope. Sitting at opposite ends of the table, ignoring each other.

 _I fucked the son of the man who dumped Jason's body_ , Cheryl wanted to say. _Last night. Right next to your 1916 concert grand. It was phenomenal._

But she knew that Penelope would accuse her of acting out, and Penelope might even be right. And she didn't want Penelope to be right about anything. For the first time in her life, Cheryl was starting to think that Penelope didn't deserve to be right. Not anymore.

"I want to be here when the babies are born," Cheryl said. "In Riverdale."

"Why do you think I give a damn about what you want, Cheryl?" her mother asked. Tone measured. Words venomous. The Penelope way.

"I wasn't asking you to care," Cheryl said. "I was just telling you. If you send me away again, I'll do something horrible."

Tone measured. Words venomous. The Blossom way. Cheryl looked up and caught her mother's enraged expression, two seconds before Penelope was up, coming around the table to hit her.

Cheryl picked up her plate of pancakes and shoved it at the floor. It shattered. Maple dripped all over the carpet, the legs of the dining table.

"Cheryl!" Penelope said.

"I don't want you to hit me anymore," Cheryl said. 

Then she turned and went down to the conservatory, ignoring her mother's screeches. She wanted to cut some flowers to put on Jason's grave. She gathered up big handfuls of desert roses and brought them to the kitchen to arrange them.

Jughead Jones was sitting awkwardly on a stool, staring at his hands.

"You're still here?" Cheryl said.

He gave her a look like he thought she was stupid. 

"I don't just walk out on girls," he said, exactly the way a socially deficient outcast who had dated Betty Cooper and only Betty Cooper might say it. 

"Your gentlemanly impulses are noted," she said. "Now please get out. I want to spend the day with my brother."

He nodded and moved for the door. He stopped at the threshold, though. Looked back at her over his shoulder.

"About Jason," he said. "I'm sorry for what -- for my dad's part--"

"You already apologized for that," Cheryl noted. "Over-apologized, really. And since I'm not going to apologize for my father framing yours for murder or for how he threatened to kill you, that makes this awkward."

"Right," Jughead said. He said it crisply, like he wanted her to know he _knew_ he shouldn't have expected any better. Cheryl had an urge to throw her desert roses at his head, but refrained, since they were for Jason.

"My only apology to you will be to grace you with my presence at Riverdale High again next semester," she said, just as he opened the door to the howling wind. She wasn't sure he heard, but he must have, because he looked back at her with amazement.

"If that's an apology, Cheryl, I don't want to hear you insult me," he said.

"I don't insult people," Cheryl said. "I describe them. Negatively."

"So do I, but I'm not going to pretend that's not insulting them," Jughead said. He gave her a grin that was gone so quickly she almost didn't note it. It was an inappropriately roguish grin. Cheryl felt her heart beating fast and couldn't figure out why. He wasn't even her type, really. 

Then he stepped out to his truck and was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

For New Year's, he went to see FP again. His dad hunched over the tiny table in the visitor's room and looked at Jughead like it was a miracle he'd bothered to show up two weeks in a row. 

"You haven't gone to see your mom," he said. "I told you last time. Use the money from the trailer to get a ticket to Toledo, even if it's just for a weekend."

Jughead didn't want to say _mom doesn't really want to see me_ , so he settled for saying, "She doesn't know about you being in jail again. I never told her."

FP looked troubled by this. He stared down at his hands. 

"Alright," he said. "Makes sense. It should be me that tells her, not you. My crime. I'll own up to it like a man."

"The way you owned up to Jason's murder like a man?" Jughead offered. "I don't know. To be honest, these days I want you doing less confessing, not more."

His dad gave him a sharp look. 

"When I was a kid," Jughead began, "when we went out to Green Lake. It was like six families from the trailer park. Six guys went out that night and then somebody robbed the general store out there. And they said it wasn't a one-man job. But only one man got caught. You."

"I thought you were done asking questions," FP said. There was something almost bitter in his tone, like he was trying hard not to make Jughead be done. Jughead ignored it. Ignored the prickle of stress it gave him. He wanted FP to understand.

He'd always wanted FP to understand. 

He said, "I wasn't done. I was tired. Tired of investigating and finding you in the middle of it. And I'm not asking questions. I'm stating facts. I could talk about other times, too. Times I never wanted to think about, where you did something, but other people did it too. And then when you were the one to get caught, I'd just think--"

"I don't rat people out," FP snapped.

"-- _that_ ," Jughead said. "I'd think you weren't really bad, and you couldn't have really have done it, because of that."

FP brought his shackled hands up to his eyes for second. It was futile. When he brought them back down, his eyes were still wet. 

"Yeah," he said. "I'm stupid _and_ a criminal. Great job, Jug. You solved that mystery."

Jughead blinked down at his hands now. He had the same hands FP did, only less scarred. And without handcuffs. He remembered they had cuffed him once, back when they were taking him to juvie, and how FP had howled like an animal after him. How FP had been the only one to visit him, hunched over an even smaller table, smelling like beer but trying his hardest to make sure Jughead knew he hadn't been forgotten. 

It had brought him that weird happy misery. When things got tough, his dad stood by him. His dad was that loyal.

"I don't want you to be stupid or a criminal," Jughead said now, giving up and wiping at his own eyes. "And I don't want somebody who loves me just when things are horrible, dad. I want--"

His voice broke. It was so stupid to ask for it, but he couldn't seem to help it.

"I want a normal dad," he said. "I want you to -- to work at getting out early for good behavior. To just be there when things are boring."

Even just getting attention from FP felt monumental. FP had to know that.

"You should go with your mom," his dad said again, after a minute. His voice was quieter now, more contemplative. "Because I'm going to be in here a long time, Jug--"

"I'll wait," Jughead said. His mom wasn't going to take either of them back, not after she learned what FP had done this time. "Just _try_ dad."

He was squeezing his eyes shut by now. He felt the press of his dad's hands over his.

"Yeah," FP said. "I will." Then, awkwardly, "What are you writing?"

"It's a gothic thing," Jughead admitted, after a second. "A horror story. Set in a small town. Not Riverdale, though. I haven't figured out the name yet."

He'd been through eleven variations like Rosehill and Thorncrest, not that he was going to tell his father that. 

"Horror, huh?" his dad said thoughtfully. "You always liked that kind of thing. The spookier the better with you."

"You have no idea," Jughead said. "You have no idea."

His father had been devastated when he'd figured out the whole Betty breakup. Learning that Jughead had hooked up with Cheryl Blossom wouldn't make that better. So Jughead didn't mention her now, just sketched out the vague particulars of the story for his dad and tried not to think about that night at Thornhill while he was sitting here with a man who had every reason to hate the Blossoms.

That night just fit jaggedly into his life. It had been good, really good, but nothing about him and Cheryl made sense together. It was just a mismatch. Like film noir scored with Christian rock. A gorefest starring Doris Day. Cheeseburgers and cod oil.

He almost didn't believe Cheryl really would show up at Riverdale High, because there was no script for how to move forward with her. He couldn't treat her like Cheryl when she'd been willing, and kind, and achingly beautiful. Admiring the way he fucked into her. Admiring herself, which usually wasn't something he condoned, but when a person looked the way Cheryl had that night, they were basically entitled to admiration.

Still, he was on high alert the first day back at school. He realized intellectually that she was right, that fucking Jughead Jones was nothing to brag about and might even lower her social cachet, so she probably wasn't going to talk about it. But if she did show up, people were still going to talk about _them_. The last time they had been seen together, she'd smacked him so hard she'd broken his lip. The last time her name had been mentioned in the halls, it had been in connection with his father's trial and sentencing.

It was weird, how no one talked about anyone else connected to her. Just the murder. The sordid criminality. Not the fact that she'd captained the Vixens. Not the way she'd ruled the school. Kevin had mentioned this once, and Veronica had snorted and said, "No. You don't get it. Queen bees always enter with a bang, but if they leave, it's with a whimper."

And she would know, because in her own way she was already effortlessly filling the void left by Cheryl. Jughead thought she probably didn't even mean to. It was just that when you were beautiful and infamous and communicated with every nose wrinkle that you had money, people reacted a certain way.

And Archie was the best player on the football team. And Betty and Kevin had helped solve a major murder. And Jughead -- Jughead was there too, also sitting at the coolest table in school these days, acutely aware that he didn't belong there.

During lunch, for a split second, he had the horrified sense that maybe everyone else was starting to get that he didn't belong there, because they were all looking at him. In shock. Panic. Possibly terror. 

Or. No. They were looking slightly above him, just over his shoulder.

"Cheryl," Archie said, a half-second before everyone else said it too, with varying degrees of unconvincing welcome.

Her long red nails dug into Jughead's shoulder. 

"I'm clawed," he said. "Archie. I'm clawed."

"I'm going to leave scratches if you don't move over and make space," Cheryl told him sweetly.

He moved over. Cheryl climbed in between him and Kevin, who was staring at her like he'd been channelsurfing on a Tuesday morning and suddenly hit on something that promised catfights and naked people and complete, enthralling chaos. Which she did. Because she was Cheryl.

And he could feel the heat of her legs against his, could look down and see where her red leather skirt met her fishnets. They were very close together. He wondered if anyone else noticed. Her perfume and the fall of her bright hair clouded his brain. He shoved his lunch into his mouth mostly to _do_ something, anything. 

"So," Cheryl said, sounding bored. "It seems that in my absence, your Spielberg goonie crew has taken over the school, and we're in the middle of the dull, dull reign of queens Betty and Veronica."

Betty rolled her eyes. Veronica said, "Dull? Sorry, Cheryl, but I'll take that over your nonstop gothic horror show--"

Cheryl's hand closed on Jughead's thigh, which Jughead thought was a completely nonsensical reaction to Veronica trying to provoke her. Also, it made him choke on his burger. Betty looked at him like she was concerned, but since Betty was sitting across the table with Archie and Veronica, she of course had no idea what was happening.

"Retract your fangs, Veronica," Cheryl said. "I've been served a heaping plate of shame in the form of my family's own penchant for criminality. So you and I are more alike than I knew, and we should be friends."

Veronica stopped mid-rant. She looked at Cheryl guardedly, and then said, "Okay, well. In that case--"

"Plus," Cheryl added, "you really are inexplicably some of the most popular people in the school now. And Cheryl Blossom always sits with the most popular people Don't worry. When your inevitable social downfall occurs, I'll abandon you all at a moment's notice."

"You--" Veronica began. "You're the _worst_ \--"

"Can we not fight?" Archie said. "At least she's being honest."

"At least we know it's definitely her," Betty said.

"I've made sure my locker is right by all of yours," Cheryl put in. "For now."

"Great," said Veronica. "I'll keep all my junk in my handbag. I'm not walking you to your locker every day."

"Jughead can walk me," Cheryl said, still stroking his thigh possessively beneath the table. 

Everyone looked at Jughead for his answer. Every molecule in Jughead's brain told him to say no. He opened his mouth.

"Leave him alone, Cheryl," Betty snapped, just as Jughead said, "Sure."

Betty looked briefly hurt. Jughead was surprised to see it. She shouldn't look like that. He didn't want her to look like that. But he found that he did want to talk to Cheryl, if only to figure out what the hell had happened between them and why, and what Cheryl expected of him now.

"Just so you know," Cheryl said, as they walked to the lockers after lunch together, "it wasn't my intention to make things weird between you and Betty. Which they will be. Forever. Because even if you get back together, if she finds out about us, that could be colossally upsetting for her. And if she doesn't, you'll be holding secrets back from her. So you see I probably destroyed any chance of a relationship with her, so you should really just focus on me."

Jughead stopped walking. Cheryl stopped too, but she was more unconcerned about it somehow.

"One, that was exactly your intention," he realized. "and two. No. No, I'm not going to be your stooge, Cheryl--"

Cheryl slid a hand up his chest, right there in the hall. Where people could see. He stared her, amazed.

"Be my sleuth, then," she said. "I still don't know why my brother died. You still don't know why your father got involved. This could be the start of a partnership, Jughead Jones."

That partnership made a weird kind of sense, even if it did turn everything on its head. A Blossom and a Jones had destroyed this town. Maybe it took a Blossom and a Jones to figure out exactly how and why, and how to keep it from happening again. But Jughead barely had time to consider this, because someone cleared their throat behind them. He turned around. Cheryl made a show of doing the same, rather more sunnily.

Kevin, Archie, Betty, and Veronica were staring at him.

"Itoldyouherhandwasonhisthigh," Kevin said.

"Okay," Betty said, looking incensed. "You can't just employ him like he's a gardener you're hiring, Cheryl--"

"You can all of course tag along too," Cheryl said. "I wouldn't expect you to keep your noses out of it."

"You slapped him across the face when he was trying to apologize to you!" Betty said. "I don't want to go anywhere with you!"

"That's too bad," Cheryl murmured. "I'll be at your house later, visiting your sister."

Betty looked like she wanted to lunge at her, so Jughead said the first thing that came to his head.

"It's okay," he said. "We were together. On Christmas. We made that up. And I do want to know why Jason Blossom died."

He did. He always had. If they were going to have darkness, he wanted it to be the kind of darkness they could all figure out together. That was the story he wanted. 

Still, he avoided meeting Betty's eyes when he asked, "Are any of the rest of you in?"

"I'm always with you," Archie said quickly, and Veronica said, "Honestly, I still want to know why the Blossoms were paying the Lodges money for like eighty years," and Kevin said, "Yeah, could I just join murder club as an associate member? I already have a lot of extracurriculars."

Betty said, "I vote we use the Blue and Gold as our headquarters again." 

His gaze locked on hers. Her eyes said, _I'm going to ask you about Christmas_.

He decided that he would tell her. It didn't feel right not to. He ducked his head and nodded and said, "After school, then."

Then he walked back to his locker, and Cheryl walked back with him, because she'd contrived to get the locker right next to his.

"God," he heard Kevin say half-admiringly. "It's like, life is completely normal, and then Cheryl shows up and--"

"Disembowels it," said Veronica. 

"Turns it upside down," suggested Archie. "In a really bad way."

Jughead stole a glance at Cheryl and saw that she was grinning.

"They're just describing you," he said. 

They said the last word together, because they both knew it was coming. 

" _Negatively_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm way more comfortable writing crack for this show, but I do love the Jughead and Cheryl misery hour. I hope they form a misery club. Where the first rule of misery club is that you extend the misery by spreading it to your friends, who you have a weird love square going on with, and then your friend Kevin is like, "Yeah. I'm not involved. But this is riveting."


End file.
